GAUNT           This blessèd plot, this earth, this realm, this England,

This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,

Feared by their breed and famous by their birth,

Renownèd for their deed as far from home

For Christian service and true chivalry

As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry

Of the world’s ransom, blessèd Mary’s son;

This land of such dear souls, this dear, dear land,

Dear for her reputation through the world,

Is now leased out—I die pronouncing it—

Like to a tenement or pelting farm. (2.1.50-60)

This, this, this again, and again shifting its scale and parameters: plot, a piece of ground, usually for building or cultivation (but also, perhaps, a grave); earth, both the earth, the ground, and its substance, soil, perhaps, in conjunction with plot a sense of getting hands dirty, ploughing and digging. But then a switch, again, back to the realm, a far more abstract unit, not defined by its materiality but by its relationship to the king—and finally, magisterially, this England. This England, all of these things, this cascading litany of big, sometimes vague, sometimes even contradictory words. The implicit fertility of the earth as cultivable land becomes even more literal, as—without even pausing on this England—it is reimagined as this nurse, this teeming, super-fertile and productive, womb of royal kings, who are brought up to be feared and wondered at for their bravery and valour, born to be famous, of themselves and as the heirs of dynastic greatness. (Richard, of course, is the son of the great Black Prince, who did not live to be king.) Those royal kings have a great reputation and a lot to live up to; their reputation and inheritance was forged far from home, in Christian service and true chivalry—that is, during the crusades. They are really famous, and not just in England. (Richard the Lionheart may be being glanced at here, very unlike his namesake.) As far from home as the Holy Sepulchre in Jewry, Jerusalem, the tomb of Christ, the ransom of the world, the son of Mary. Jewry here, the Jewish people as well as the city of Jerusalem, is stubborn because the Jewish people are self-evidently not Christian.

This is the longest movement in the speech so far, stretching over four lines now. The speech is highly patterned, six half-line this-s and a seventh over two lines, then two this-s and a third over three lines, then five this-s and a sixth over four lines. It makes sense if you look at the whole speech, in musical terms a series of crescendos, and short, repetitive, accented phrases followed by increasingly extended, legato ones. Like the waves of the sea.)

When the speech revs up again, it’s almost a parody of itself, this land of such dear souls, this dear, dear land, as if Gaunt’s exhausted his supply of extra-resonant words and has had to resort to repetition, although there’s a final qualification, dear for her reputation through the world, dear in the sense of precious, highly valued, as well as beloved, and superior, universally admired. But, finally, there’s a main verb: this land is now leased out. And dear, therefore, has a financial sense as well. Expensive, costly. Now (in stark contrast to those glory days of the globe-trotting, world-beating, crusading kings) this precious England has been rented out, pawned, as good as sold, leased out, like any old tenement (not necessarily pejorative here, it just means a rental property) or a pelting, paltry farm. This England, special and exceptional no longer. Leased out for urgently-needed cash, no longer transcendent, but mundane, grubby, and betrayed.